Mead Mead () is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%. The defining character ...

, a fermented

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

beverage, was a minimally significant contributor to the United States alcohol industry until the late 20th century, at which time a

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...

industry for mead began to grow. From approximately the 1980s onward, small-scale meaderies began to increase in number, with a marked jump in interest evident by the 2010s.

History

Mead was not a commonly manufactured alcoholic beverage in the United States before the 1980s. It was mostly unknown to the general public or was thought of as a historical curiosity associated with the

medieval era In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, and there was little variety in recipe to drive consumer interest. A small number of special-interest manufacturers made mead starting in the 1960s.What Is Mead?
''Delish'', August 15, 2019. One early manufacturer was Bargetto Winery in California, whose Chaucer's Mead was manufactured from the 1960s, and another was Lingamore Winecellars, a Maryland-based winery that began making mead in 1978; initially, both were manufacturing primarily to supply Renaissance festivals. Interest in mead began to increase alongside the growth of the

home brewing Homebrewing is the brewing of beer or other alcoholic beverages on a small scale for personal, non-commercial purposes. Supplies, such as kits and fermentation tanks, can be purchased locally at specialty stores or online. Beer was brewed do ...

market, especially after the publication of Charlie Papazian's ''The Complete Joy of Home Brewing'' in 1984. Some of the strategies employed by craft brewers to add distinctive flavors and aromas to their recipes were adopted by mead makers as well; as ''Imbibe'' magazine notes, "many meaderies are taking cues from craft brewing and dry-hopping meads, selling them in growlers and on draft, and aging them in oak barrels that once contained wine, bourbon or, fittingly, imperial stouts." The boom in

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

enthusiasm and the local foods movement also coincided with, and may have helped fuel, mead's rise in visibility.Medieval No More: Mead Enjoys A Renaissance

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, May 1, 2011. Between 2008 and 2011 the number of participants in the Mazer Cup more than doubled, from 100 to 218, an indicator of the rising economic footprint of the drink.So Old It's New, Mead Enjoys a Renaissance
''New York Times'', February 7, 2012. There were about 60 commercial meaderies in the United States in 2003, and 200 in 2012. 2012 marked the establishment of the American Mead Makers Association, a trade and industry group for mead manufacturers. By 2020, approximately 500 small-scale mead manufacturers were operating in the United States.

Regions

Mead-making operations are now present in most American states. Michigan is one of the most prominent mead-producing states; ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'' remarks that the state "could very well be mead's mecca

n the US N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

" Arizona is also a prominent mead-making state; the state's central valleys play host to wildflower blooms that have attracted mead makers, and it is the home state of Superstition Meadery.American Producers are Making the Best Mead ‘the World Has Ever Known’
''Wine Enthusiast'', April 7, 2021. California, the home state of

Rabbits Foot Meadery Rabbit's Foot Meadery is a meadery and winery founded in Sunnyvale, California, United States, and located in Sutter Creek, California. History Rabbit's Foot Meadery was founded in 1995 when Michael Faul of Sunnyvale, California began producin ...

, also has many mead-making businesses, especially in the greater

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

. Colorado plays host annually to the Mazer Cup, an international awards competition for mead.American Mead
''Imbibe'', June 13, 2003. Some meaderies in the United States have explored cross-cultural mead recipes, pairing with meaderies in other countries, such as Ireland, South Africa, and Brazil.

Regulation

Because of the patchwork of state laws regulating the production and sale of alcoholic beverages (an outgrowth of the 21st Amendment, which ended the

Prohibition Era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacturing, manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption ...

and returned liquor regulation to the control of each U.S. state), there are often substantial difficulties in obtaining the necessary licenses and permissions to start a commercial meadery and ship the product in certain states.Making Mead in a Space Age World
''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', October 21, 2014. Meaderies must also obtain a license from the federal government to operate.How the World's Oldest Booze Is Finally Becoming Cool
''Thrillist'', April 25, 2019. Federal food and beverage regulations classify mead in the same category as wine, which has made some manufacturing and labeling decisions difficult for meadmakers. The federal regulations also make no differentiation between different styles or varieties of mead.

References

{{reflist Mead Alcohol in the United States

History

Regions

Regulation

See also

References